Support FAQ

Payara Platform Features

Will we get any additional features in Payara® Server/Payara® Micro if we purchase Commercial Support (Payara Enterprise or Migration & Project Support)?

When you download the Payara Platform you have the option of adding commercial support. Our support customers have priority on new features requests. We also integrate with a support portal, available only to support customers, and provide more frequent patch versions with fixes to support customers.

Will we get any additional resources and documentation if we purchase Commercial Support?

Yes. While the reference documentation is always provided for free, Payara Enterprise and Migration & Project Support Customers have access to the Support Knowledge Base that includes a database of solutions to known issues and frequent common problems. It also provides additional guides to configuring advanced features related to security, performance tuning and other areas important in production.

Will we have access to any additional tools if we purchase Commercial Support?

Yes, although most of the tools we provide are open source and are available publicly. Additionally, Payara Enterprise and Migration & Project Support Customers have access to a supported version of OpenJDK called Zulu JDK. In the future, we plan to provide some additional tools only for Support Customers, such as an easy to use upgrade tool for Payara Server.

Support Price Calculation

I’d like Commercial Support just for my Production Environment. Why do I need to count the number of instances being used in test, pre-production and disaster recovery environments when calculating support costs?

Support for the Payara Platform is offered for both development and production environments as a high proportion of the issues handled by our team are discovered when users are trying to bring a new version of a production system through their development and testing phases. For this reason, no distinction is given on support tickets for multi-user test environments, pre-production and disaster recovery environments.

Furthermore, once a support ticket is raised, our Support Team can resolve your issue as quickly as possible without having to check which type of instances the issue is being raised for.

Please note that instances used in your developers’ local machines do not need to be counted when calculating support.

If a higher level of support is needed for production, we offer the ability to mix support levels. For instance, you can have 24×7 Support for your production environment and 10×5 support for instances being used in testing and development.

Can support cost be calculated per CPU core instead of number of units?

As 1 unit corresponds to 6 CPU cores just count the number of physical or virtual CPU cores and divide it by 6 to calculate the total number of units.

Can you give me an example that demonstrates the different ways of calculating support costs?

Environment

Payara Server JVMs

Host CPU Cores

Production

4

32

Pre-Production

4

32

Test

2

16

Total

10

80

Calculating Units

By number of instances

Since 1 instance equals 1 unit, there are 10 units when counting by instances

By number of CPU cores

Since 6 cores equal 1 unit, there are 13.3 units when counting by cores (80 divided by 6)

In this example, counting by instances would put this scenario in the 6-10 unit band and counting by CPU cores would put the scenario in the 11-20 unit band. The method of counting units is a choice left to the customer. In this example, a customer may choose to count by instances because it would be cheaper to begin with, or they may choose to count by CPU cores since it allows for future expansion and flexibility without needing to change the contract. The number of Payara Server instances could be doubled or even tripled and as long as the number of CPU cores does not change, the contract does not need to change.

The number of Payara Server instances used on our environment varies throughout the year. How can support cost be calculated in this case?

For elastic environments, customers are advised to choose what they believe is their average usage within the year and select the applicable band unit. Our charge is in bands with the objective to accommodate burstable deployments.

Support Upgrade

Can we upgrade Payara Enterprise support levels during the year? We would like to start on a 10×5 support and change it to 24×7 at a later stage.

Yes, you can upgrade your support level or add cover for a higher number of instances at any point during your contract agreement.

How Does Support Work?

In practical terms, how would the Support Team help us diagnose a problem in production? Would the Payara Team have direct access to our systems?

For security reasons our Support Team does not have direct access to customer’s systems.

However, we offer a live support option, which means that our Support Engineers can work with you through screen-sharing or via the phone to quickly diagnose and resolve issues.

Does Payara Enterprise production support include assistance with development issues?

Payara Enterprise production support includes support for development environments in its full extent, so as a production support customer you will receive help with any issues you may face in the development stage of your applications.

Support Contract Termination

Will we be able to terminate the Payara Enterprise production support contract when it’s due for renewal and keep using Payara Server/Payara Micro without Commercial Support?

Yes, Payara Server and Payara Micro are both open source software, which means that you can continue using them without commercial support. However if Commercial Support is needed again within 12 months of lapsing support, the new contract start date will be from the expiration date of the previous contract.

What happens when the support contract has expired and there are tickets or issues pending for resolution?

Once your support contract expires, any outstanding support tickets will be marked as resolved. Should the support contract be reinstated, work on this ticket can continue from that date.

Any outstanding bugs will continue to be worked, but we cannot guarantee when those will be solved.

SLAs

How do the SLAs work for companies based outside the UK?

Our SLAs refer to the UK business hours only. However, we have a worldwide Support Team which is constantly expanding, and we are planning to offer a ‘follow- the- sun’, new 24×7 support structure in the near future.

Consultancy

We do offer consultancy services, under Payara Accelerator, however these are available for our Payara Enterprise and Migration & Project Support Customers only. More details about our Consulting services can be found here: